Sermon on the County, Loveall Style
The Jan. 5 “State of the County” address, organized and led by outgoing Lane County Commission Board Chair David Loveall, is recorded on a video that all Lane County citizens should watch to see the blatant erosion of the separation of church and state in a public meeting. Find it on YouTube at YouTube.com/watch?v=1PrO_JPIPA0.
In his opening remarks, Loveall alludes to “the higher power who appointed us” rather than recognizing Lane County residents who voted for the commissioners.
After watching and listening to Loveall’s guest, Chris Cirullo, give his lengthy sermon on the county exhorting God to “come and heal Lane County,” along with a pastor at New Hope Christian College, Guy Higashi, sharing his internal compass as Jesus and the Kingdom of God (“Bow your heads and pray with me”), I thought I was viewing an evangelical religious service rather than a Lane County government event.
Put in perspective: another example of Loveall’s Trumpian attitude that he so brashly displayed in a letter to Lane County administrator Steve Mokrohisky, “Commissioners can do whatever they want and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
However, what those of us who believe in the separation of church and state can do is vote Loveall out of office in November. Then my prayers will be answered.
Karen Myers
Eugene
State of the County, Not Church of the County
Lane County residents are free to practice any religion they choose. They should also be free from their government blatantly proselytizing to them from the podium of the county building. In his final act as chair, Commissioner David Loveall made clear his perpetual disregard for the separation of church and state.
Watch the video and see that I am not exaggerating in the slightest. If you think the government’s role is to uplift one faith and explicitly state that all other faiths are lesser, you should not be in charge of our tax dollars.
I choose to pray to the same deity that Loveall does. Normal people can do this without demanding that the government promote that deity, even after being warned that it makes others in the county uncomfortable. Honestly, using your official position to knowingly create a hostile climate for others is what a weak person does. This will be worth remembering in November. Until such time, I thank the Lane County board for serving the whole public.
Thomas Hiura
Eugene
Threats to Dance at LCC
Dance programs are rarely eliminated with one decisive vote. More often, they are quietly starved until they can no longer survive. To endure, dance educators must constantly advocate — for funding, for resources, and too often for legitimacy itself. Now retired, I write after nearly two decades as the full-time dance faculty member at Lane Community College.
Dance has long been treated as a lesser art form: Dismissed as entertainment rather than art, sexualized rather than respected and labeled extracurricular rather than essential. Funding follows a familiar hierarchy — other arts are supported first, and dance is left with what remains.
Quietly and steadily, beneath LCC’s more visible budget and union challenges, the dance program is being dismantled. There has been no announcement that it is being “cut.” Instead, there are incremental reductions, diminished support and detrimental administrative decisions.
This erosion is especially alarming because Lane’s two-year dance program is the only one of its kind in Oregon. It has served generations of students — many of whom transfer, pursue professional careers, or remain deeply connected to the arts. Many in our community have taken classes, attended performances in the Ragozzino Theatre, or supported the 2008 bond that funded one of the state’s finest dance studios.
While public attention has duly focused on union and governance issues, the fight for dance is happening largely out of view.
The community deserves to know what is happening — before this program is lost to cumulative, below-the-radar cuts.
Bonnie Simoa
Director
Northwest Movement Ensemble
Eugene
An Ode to Dick Moves
I just wanted to thank you all for what you do for this community! I always pick up EW when I see a new issue in the wild, I try to get it every week in fact!
I really appreciated the “Top 10 Dick Moves” article! I knew about a lot of the things happening, but I didn’t know it in depth! Keep on keeping on!
Paz Tanguma
Eugene
Oregon’s Wildlife Matters
Thanks to Chandra LeGue for her hiking guide (Jan. 8) and a call to support the 1.25% for Wildlife Bill. If passed, it will increase the statewide lodging tax to directly focus on restoring habitat for imperiled species. I like this bill because I’m a fisherman and have seen the degradation of all salmon species over the 17 years I have lived here. I’ll be urging my state lawmakers, Senator Manning and Representative Nathanson, to support this bill, and I hope other Eugene Weekly readers do the same. There’s an easy way to do that at 1Percent4Wildlife.Org. There really is no downside — Oregon’s lodging tax would still remain among the lowest in the country. If you live in Oregon for the natural beauty and diversity of creatures who live here, I encourage you to write to your representative.
Ted Ledgard
Eugene
Objecting to Dick Moves
You don’t know me. However, after spending a number of years as the lead window clerk at the south Eugene post office, there are hundreds of your readers that have a pretty good idea of the kind of person that I am.
In your frankly one-sided article, (“Top 10 Local Dick Moves” Dec. 31, 2025) Adrian Parr Zaretsky was criticized for supposedly unfairly complaining about a student’s political display. After this article, I decided to meet Zaretsky. Have any of your reporters met her? I found her to be a pleasant person. She made her complaint not because of political reasons, but because of the worldwide surge, including at the University of Oregon, of antisemitism. It is not her fault for how the university dealt with the situation. It would’ve been much more productive for this unapologetic student to be required to take a course in human sensitivity.
Am I wrong in believing that an independent newspaper is supposed to be doing reporting, not cheerleading? As a result of your lack of reporting on both sides, you have defamed Zaretsky and provided a disservice to your credibility with your readers.
Your editor really owes your readers an apology. No matter how you react to this letter, you know within yourselves that you allowed your politics to take preference to the truth.
Ken Rosemarin
Eugene
Editor’s note: Our writer attempted to interview Zaretsky but she declined and responded only by email. It is not defamation (libel or slander) if the facts are true.
Yellow Vaccinism
I was disappointed to note that the EW Slant (Jan. 6) claimed that Secretary Robert Kennedy is “merrily dooming children” by altering CDC regulations for mandated vaccines. I hate to use the term “yellow journalism,” but there is as yet no completely independent research evidence that the CDC schedule either helps or harms the health of children. When you can produce a study untainted by pharmaceutical funding, please report it. We deserve to know.
Patricia Spicer
Eugene
Editor’s note: Yellow journalism refers to a 19th century battle between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst in which their newspaper reporting emphasized sensationalism over facts. Slant is an opinion column.
ONLINE EXTRA LETTERS
Kristi Noem the ICE Barbie
Kristi Noem’s reputation for cruelty and lying has earned her the people’s disgust award for being the family pet-killing, stone-cold lying ICE Barbie.
Her many outrages include telling Congress that Homeland Security has not deported any U.S. citizens or veterans and that the legal term “habeas corpus” means the President has “the constitutional right to remove people from this country.”
Her latest outrage is acting the part of MAGA’s chief school marm by instructing the President’s sheep-fold followers that the Minneapolis woman killed by an ICE agent committed an “act of domestic terrorism,” implying she was worthy of death.
Her malfeasance in office should not be diminished by the fact she is a slender woman with good hair. If Congress collectively had a conscience, she would be impeached and removed from office.
Cabinet members like Noem and other officials like Vice President JD Vance know that the Minneapolis shooting is the President’s George Floyd moment, where a vicious murder is caught on camera.
Loyalists quickly put on blinders, but most of the nation have eyes to see.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
Trump Hubris
Now Trump says the only thing that guides him is his “own morality”. He doesn’t care what our laws say. He doesn’t care what international law says. He doesn’t care what Congress says. It’s all based on his own warped sense of “morality”, which we know is: Whatever is good for Trump is good, and whatever is bad for Trump is bad. How can a supposedly advanced and intelligent society put up with this hubris? We have to get this guy out of there!
Ward Ricker
Eugene
Trump Grabs
For every person who fled Venezuela because of Nicolás Maduro’s oppressive government and is rejoicing in the street thanking Donald Trump for nabbing Maduro, there are thousands who have been swept up by ICE and languish in Detention Centers. When the Centers are full they are sent to prison. Ironically, there are over 100 Venezuelans being held in the same facility in Brooklyn as Maduro.
We have an administration that feels themselves entitled to grab whatever they want. Women (girls, children), beachfront property in Gaza and oil in Venezuela.
On my dime!
Susan Matthews
Eugene
Slavery Still Exists
Forty million people worldwide are labor-trafficked. Slavery exists today. Many are literally worked to death. In former CIA agent Adam Zarnowski’s book Jörmungandr: A study in Global Human Trafficking…, Russian and Israeli organized crime networks are the two networks that rule the world. The Trump organization is a third, lesser, criminal network through which the first two operate. The secret police-organized crime nexus murdered Zarnowski’s wife.
Zarnowski claimed that the National Security Agency (NSA) audited the 2024 presidential election; and that Kamala Harris won; and by a wide margin. Locally, though, an activist said, “I don’t believe it; the NSA doesn’t do that.” That activist has not (yet) elaborated. The activist said that from a high level in the Democrat party, the Democrats won the swing states; but that that party wasn’t going to do anything about it.
Just as George W. Bush was not elected president in 2004 (see Columbus Free Press, Dec.11, 2013, in the article which begins, The ghost of rigged elections past:…. As W. Bush took office through electronic election theft (EW Letters Feb. 11, 2021 and Dec. 18, 2022 etc.), the 2024 presidential election was also stolen through electronic election theft. The infamous “hanging chads” in Florida in 2004 was via intentionally using the incorrect paper stock, designed to move Florida to e-voting.
Of the eight states which used only mail-in ballots, only bright red Utah went for Trump.
Kevin Russell
Eugene
250 years as a Nation
2026 and we are going to celebrate 250 years as a nation.
Two hundred and fifty years and our first leader could tell no lies.
Our current leader is filled with hate, vengeance, a draft dodger, who is willing to put others in harm’s way.
I compare this leader with no disrespect to the Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz, “If I only had a brain,” the desire for intelligence and the ability to think, not going to happen.
I could say he reminds me of Sergeant Schultz from Hogan Heroes, “I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing”.
The Republicans are a flock like sheep and birds, making decisions based upon their leader. It is called the “herd mentality,” follow without questioning.
The MAGA well they are automatons; blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma.
250 years and this should be celebrated? Let the 77.3 million Automatons, Sheeple who voted for the Scarecrow celebrate.
The highlight the Scarecrow will fall asleep during the celebration.
We have learned nothing in the past 250 years.